


Burdens

by SyntheticRevenge



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, I have absolutely no idea how to tag this!! whoops, M/M, Multi, Non-Linear Narrative, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:33:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27034252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SyntheticRevenge/pseuds/SyntheticRevenge
Summary: You have to make friends with the burden you’re bound to. If Zag’s learned anything from Sisyphus, it’s that. Everyone has a boulder to push. Zag’s is the fight out of Tartarus, the sweaty slog through Asphodel, the brutal winded bloody glory-drunk burst from Elysium into the temple.He’s learning to love it. Maybe not quite the same way Sisyphus loves Bouldy. Zag’s boulder isn’t  something he can carve a face into and talk to, but he sort of tries all the same. Makes it all a bit of a joke to himself. Lets it blur around him. Settles in.
Relationships: Achilles & Zagreus (Hades Video Game), Megaera/Zagreus (Hades Video Game), Thanatos/Zagreus (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 173





	Burdens

**Author's Note:**

> I've been playing this game literally since release day. I have a lot of feelings and before I write something coherent, I guess I just had to vomit a bunch of them out lol. Hope you enjoy!

i.

You have to make friends with the burden you’re bound to. If Zag’s learned anything from Sisyphus, it’s that. Everyone has a boulder to push. Zag’s is the fight out of Tartarus, the sweaty slog through Asphodel, the brutal winded bloody glory-drunk burst from Elysium into the temple. 

He’s learning to love it. Maybe not quite the same way Sisyphus loves Bouldy. Zag’s boulder isn’t something he can carve a face into and talk to, but he sort of tries all the same. Makes it all a bit of a joke to himself. Lets it blur around him. Settles in.

And it goes by faster each time, no matter the ending. No matter where he falls, or how, or how long he lasts. He just shakes himself off, says his hellos and goodbyes, and dives back in. Keeps pushing the weight of the world up the mountain and laughing it off when it comes rolling back down.

Yes, sure, it’s getting exhausting. Yes, he’d love to sleep. He’d love to share ambrosia with his friends. Love to bury his face in Than’s chest and just be still in his arms for a while, love to kiss Meg until every rational coherent thought evaporates from his mind. 

But he can’t. He’ll die if he stops moving. The boulder will crush him as it rolls back down his insurmountable mountain.

So he keeps himself to stolen glances and mid-battle smirks and dying delirious fantasies. The edges of great loves. That’s all he lets himself have.

ii.

Great loves, the full-on ones, the real deals--they require suffering and sacrifice. That’s a lesson Zag’s learned from Achilles and Patroclus, from Orpheus and Eurydice, from endless throngs of shades whispering in the halls throughout his life.

He’s never been good at that. Suffering, he’s got down. Sacrifice...he’d give everything for the people he loves. Gives everything to see his mother day-night-whatever in and day-night-whatever out, but--still, it’s selfishness, of a kind. He  _ is _ doing it for himself, in the end.

It’s fine. He’s not destined for a great love, really, is he? He’s chained to his endless uphill battle, and Meg and Than have their work, endless and unstoppable and infinite. As long as there are mortals, and as long as those mortals remain mortal, they’ll be busy.

Maybe Zag’s just doing all this so he doesn’t have to be the dreadfully depressed decadent prince desperately waiting for his lovers to come home. Sometimes, he thinks that’s all it is, in those blood-soaked tumbles into nonexistence, those moments where he tries to talk himself into giving up, just for a little while. Just until he can get the phantom pains of all his previous deaths out. Just until he feels all the way awake again. Just--

But no. He keeps pushing, and he takes love where he can get it: the fondness in Than’s tone when they fight together, Meg’s little smirks when he runs into her in Tartarus, the smell of Eurydice’s cooking, the claps on the back from Sisyphus, his mother’s arms around him, Cerberus’s contented whining--

He’s quite fortunate, actually, isn’t he? At times, he’s almost glad he can’t survive the surface, that something will always bind him to all the love he nearly takes for granted.

iii.

He nearly takes a lot for granted. Achilles’ training, for one thing. The endless hours they spent sparring--Zag had loved every single one of them, naturally, loved Achilles’ strong, gentle hands bracing his shoulders into position, loved the way the two of them could lose themselves locked in a duel. It had almost--well, Zag’s a romantic, and he always half-expected--but it doesn’t matter, he’s no match for Patroclus, and he wouldn’t want to be.

Even despite loving the training, though, Zag hadn’t ever thought it would mean much. Never expected to be part of some great war like his father, like his family--but now that he’s endlessly carving through wretches and bloodless and satyrs and every other nasty beast of the Underworld, he’s desperately grateful for it. 

He’s so hardwired to be a fighter that he forgets himself, sometimes. Lets his mind wander and comes back to himself in a freshly-emptied chamber, breathing hard, dripping blood in a few new places. He breathes metal and wood, he thinks, he  _ is _ the arms he bears. Varatha and Aegis return to him whenever he casts them away like extensions of himself, like they were always meant to be held by him. 

He almost takes them for granted, too, but then Coronacht, true to its name, will fell Lernie, straight through one of its many, many eyes, and he’ll feel a swell of immense gratitude, to Achilles, and to his weapons.

The one thing he never even gets close to taking for granted are the blessings from his family. Those, he’s all too aware of.

iv.

Thunder crashing in his ears too loud to think, love and lust swelling his heart painfully, rage blinding him, the taste of wine heavy on his tongue--it’s impossible to ignore the gifts his family give him. They overwhelm, overpower.

Olympians are not to be ignored, not like the chthonic, dark beings Zag’s grown up with. They fade into darkness, obscurity, necessity--the world would stop functioning without them, yet mortals overlook them until it’s far too late.

He wants to be like his uncles and cousins. Bold and powerful and  _ loved _ . Yet, what is he the god of? It’s a mocking, horrid question, one his father’s asked him time and time again, and he still has no answer. Maybe he’s the god of blood. Of struggling. Of perseverance. Of leaving those you love over and over and over again.

Or maybe he’s  _ not  _ the god of anything, but the way he feels when the Olympians bless him--it’s close enough to it. Radiant, deadly, power-drunk, near  _ mad _ with it. It’s an incredible high, a rush of undeniable strength--every time he lands a killing blow on his father he explodes with it, even as the shame and pervasive wrongness flood in.

He understands how Achilles could single-handedly end a war. He thinks he could, too, if he ever found something bigger than himself to fight for.

v.

Does he  _ need _ to fight for something greater? Is it not enough to fight for himself? For a reason to keep going? 

It was bad, there, for a while. Endless, dark masses of nothingness masquerading as days. Not wanting to become his father and take on his work, but not wanting to do anything else either. He’d pushed Meg away, Than had no idea how to help--so, mostly, he was alone, save Nyx making her sad little noises at him on occasion, and Hypnos, cheery and tone-deaf as ever, providing him with blatantly unhelpful suggestions for how to feel better.

He  _ does _ feel better, now. Much better. And that’s something. He feels better and he’s loved by the people he loves and he’s fine not being the god of anything and he doesn’t take anything for granted and he has a purpose.

He starts smiling when he comes out of the Pool of Styx, dripping and aching and exhausted. It terrifies Hypnos, concerns Than, gets a scoff out of his father. Says his hellos, says his goodbyes, and takes the plunge, yet again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! All feedback is appreciated <3  
> Find me on tumblr @witnesstotheend


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